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Burning the candle at both ends.

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here! Well, lots of great things happening in my life. For a while I was freelancing from company to company, taking on projects here and there in the last year. Jumping around really! You do what you can as projects come up as a means to a living!

This new year really was off to a great start. I was freelancing with a small digital web/marketing company in El Segundo for three months and then one of the recruiters that I work with called me with a small freelance project at Skechers! I hopped onto their small animation project they were creating as a promo video for a new shoe that’s coming out. They had hired me on to design and create the character and the visual development of the animated commercial. And then my first day there, Hasbro contacted me! So now I freelance there in-house as a Product Designer at Hasbro. All of this happened the second week of March. I finally feel like my life is going in the direction that I want! I couldn’t be more happier.

But my other freelance gigs had to be tied up. I was finishing a web design project on the side with the small company in El Segundo I’ve been freelancing with. I had to come in on one weekend to finish it out after the first week working at Hasbro. And then come in two hours after work on a Monday night to finish it out. That last week in March, I was super burnt out finishing work after work. I was burning the candle at both ends.

How many times have we burnt ourselves out? For those of you who have full time jobs, you probably know what I’m talking about. When you’re used to taking so much on, you don’t realize that in the midst of doing it all, you suddenly get exhausted. And the only person hurting is you. We don’t realize that taking time out for self care should be number one. And by doing too much can be hazardous to your health and overall well being.

I actually treated myself to a yoga class after work today and it was the most enlightening class. Yoga really is good for balancing the mind, body, and spirit. Not only do you get to stretch and feel like you’re in your body, but its also a good way to re examine the present moment. Our instructor was very good and he mentioned something about the yoga poses that clicked and it also kind of served as a metaphor for what I was going through. He said that when you move through the yoga poses, its ok that you don’t give your absolute 100% as you transition, and that we need to take our time to move through things. Otherwise you’d burnout the candle at both ends. And it all just made sense.

I was burning the candle at both ends. Saying yes to too many outside freelance work after work and I was starting to burnout. I realize as I get older that more rest and relaxation is needed and that I can’t just power through things like I used to in the past. I’ve been very used to this lifestyle in the last couple years of holding down a full time job and also studying online after work for grad school for two years. I need to change.

I want the quality of my life to change and to not be filled with so much work that I can’t enjoy my life. I really don’t need to take on extra freelance work and I realized I wasn’t respecting and valuing my own free time and energy. This also goes the same for family and friends asking for too much of your time and energy when you don’t even have time for yourself. The most important thing is you. If you aren’t taking care of you, then who is? Respect yourself enough to rest, to make time to relax, and move through the transitions in life more gracefully. Take on extra projects only when you do have a little bit of free time. So many lessons to learn, this is by far a very important one that couldn’t have come at the right time.